Tennis and Wimbledon meet Fortnite: RTIH’s biggest retail technology news stories of the week
It’s Friday, the weekend is almost upon us, so let’s kick back and reflect on another eventful week for the retail systems space. Here's your briefing on the most important stories from the past five days, including Polytag, Dexory, Cart.com, A2Z’s Cust2Mate, Carrefour, Auchan Poland, and Trigo.
1. Polytag and Biffa team up to help Ocado Retail, Co-op and Aldi gain packaging lifecycle data
Recycling tech firm, Polytag, and sustainable waste management company, Biffa, have announced a collaboration with Ocado Retail, Co-op, and Aldi.
Through monitoring analytics via the Polytag dashboard, the UK retailers will be able to access real-time data insights, such as where, when and how much packaging has been recycled.
Moreover, Polytag will enable Biffa to start to capture real-time data on packaging composition directly through its processing operations, informing recycling strategy, investment in sorting, recovery equipment, and the onward tracking of materials.
The businesses have joined forces as part of plastics, resource, efficiency and recycling charity RECOUP’s 26-week long ‘Bottle to Bottle’ project, in conjunction with label printer Interket UK, the UK’s largest dairy co-operative Arla Foods and Müller Milk & Ingredients.
This will see Co-op’s water bottles and Aldi and Ocado’s milk marked with UV 2D tags, printed by Interket UK, with a Polytag UV tag reader retrofitted onto the plastic conveyor at Biffa’s Teesside MRF in the northeast of England.
2. Anyone for digital tennis? Wimbledon launches on Fortnite ahead of 2023 Grand Slam tournament
The All England Lawn Tennis Club is making its entry to online gaming platform Fortnite, with the launch of Race to Wimbledon.
The announcement is accompanied by various digital initiatives for Wimbledon fans that have been released this week, including new features on its Roblox experience WimbleWorld, a new gamified tennis app Wimbledon Smash, and a collaboration with mobile game Tennis Clash.
Players of Race to Wimbledon – which is presented in partnership with Amercian Express – will run, drive, parkour and fly past London landmarks, including Big Ben and the London Eye, through Wimbledon village and past Andy Murray’s golden letterbox, navigating around obstacles such as giant strawberries and tennis rackets, to make it to Centre Court in the fastest time.
As well as on all the usual devices, this will be available to play on-site throughout The Championships at the American Express Fan Experience in the Southern Village.
As part of the experience, players are challenged to beat the time of American Express ambassador Murray and post their time to social media.
3. Automated warehouses: Supply chain technology startup Dexory bags $19 million in Series A funding
UK-based AI and robotics company, Dexory, has secured $19 million in Series A funding led by European VC firm Atomico, with participation from existing investors Lakestar, Kindred, Capnamic, and Maersk Growth, the investment arm of the global logistics and container shipping company, Maersk.
As part of this, Atomico Partner Ben Blume will join Dexory’s board of directors.
“For those operating warehouses, ensuring 100% fulfilment ‘in time, all the time’ is crucial to meeting the demands of the modern consumer. A critical component to achieving this is high stock accuracy, but staff shortages, manual processes, and the speed demanded by customers means that critical decisions across the supply chain are currently being taken blindly,” says Dexory CEO and co-founder Andrei Danescu.
“Technology that is autonomous, real-time, intuitive, and integrated can have a transformative effect on the everyday efficiency, productivity, and accuracy of a warehouse - and form an integral part of revamping businesses supply chain strategies.”
4. A2Z’s Cust2Mate subsidiary wraps Carrefour smart carts pilot and preps move to roll-out phase
A2Z Smart Technologies Corp.'s Cust2Mate subsidiary has announced completion of a pilot phase at Carrefour.
Since March, its smart carts have undergone testing at Carrefour's flagship hypermarket store in Ste Genevieve Des Bois, near Paris.
As part of the roll-out phase, Carrefour and Cust2Mate are looking to initially deploy smart carts in two of the former’s hypermarket stores in Q4 of this year.
Guillaume Cocovi, Director Strategy Transformation of the Carrefour Group, says: "We are seeing very, very positive feedback from customers at this store. Before launching this project, like any large company, we issued a call for proposals.”
“We looked at what was happening in the market, and Cust2Mate was the company that offered us the product that best matched our expectations and put the most effort into supporting us in the deployment. We felt it right away.”
“The relationship with the founders was very smooth, and the project started at full speed since the carts were already there. In just three months, the test could begin."
5. Auchan Retail Poland opens first Auchan Go autonomous store powered by Trigo technology
Auchan Retail Poland has launched the first fully autonomous store within its Auchan Go concept.
Located in Warsaw, the cashier free location is open 24/7 and features an AI powered solution from Trigo.
Poland becomes the first market where the Auchan Go store is fully operational for shoppers, following tests of the frictionless concept in France.
6. E-commerce platform Cart.com secures $60 million Series C funding round at $1.2 billion valuation
Cart.com, a US-based specialist in e-commerce software and services, has raised a $60 million Series C equity funding round at a valuation of $1.2 billion.
This is an increase in valuation of nearly 50% since the startup’s Series B funding in February 2022.
Cart.com has raised $440 million in total since being founded in November 2020.
The Series C includes participation from B. Riley Venture Capital, Kingfisher Investment Advisors, Snowflake Ventures, Prosperity7 Ventures, Legacy Knight, and other strategic corporate and financial investors.
The company will use the new investment to meet increased demand from enterprise and B2B clients, accelerate its international expansion, and expand product development across its software portfolio.
“We are proud to partner with this prestigious group of investors to accelerate our growth and continue to deliver best-in-class solutions to our customers,” says Omair Tariq, CEO and Co-Founder at Cart.com.
“As a leading commerce software and services provider, we are focused on enabling our customers to compete and win across every channel through digital tools and digitally driven logistics capabilities.”
“We will continue to invest in our industry-leading commerce data capabilities, which are built to address the specific inventory, channel and supply chain challenges facing enterprises.”
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